Hey there!
Toronto (and outskirts) has been home for the last 15 or so years, so I think I know the city pretty well ... :glasses9:
Places to see: really depends on what you're into, but the obvious ones that come to mind are the CN Tower, distillary district, ROM (Royal Ontario Museum), and the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Party spots have also changed a bit since I was a young'un ... but the Queen Street strip is a good bet. The live clubs there are the Horseshoe, The Rivoli, The 360, and a few others. If you're into dance music :icon_scratch: those clubs are a little farther south on a street called Richmond.
Places to stay: never had too, I got my own place :toothy10: As long as you're downtown, pretty much any hotel is nice. When you get on the fringes of downtown (west end ... an area called Parkdale), things get a little dicey. I know there's a Day's Inn right around the corner from where I work on College Street, that's probably not too expensive. I you got the cash to blow, though, stay at the Royal York.
One interesting Rush story from an engineer buddy (and mentor) of mine:
There 's a recording studio downtown called Manta Sound (now closed, unfortunately) that was home to Canada's largest studio floor (at the time) ... they could record up to a 200 piece orchestra. Anyway, Rush had some time booked there to record either Farewell to Kings, or Permanent Waves (forget which). At the time, Manta was THE place for commercial jingle sessions. They decided one day to bump Rush's session in favor of a commercial client, thinking that one day wouldn't bother anybody. Well, it did. Rush cancelled the rest of their time, packed up and went to Le Studio, which is about an hour north of Montreal in a town called Morin Heights. They vowed that they would never record in Toronto again after that incident, and their next 3 records were indeed done at Le Studio.
arty07:
